Friday, 5 December 2014

5th December 2014 Ban Maka & Samnak Maiteng Reservoir

Awoke to another heavily overcast day but at least it wasn't raining. Walked the Ban Maka grounds and checked the lake seeing a good selection of species including several Yellow Bitterns and a Ruddy-breasted Crake. We then left to make the drive to Samnak Maiteng Reservoir near Ratchaburi having read of a Pied Harrier roost there on Gerry Brett's blog. After a mile or so we stopped to see if the Green Bee-eaters and Red-rumped Swallows were performing but couldn't find my digiscoping camera. Checked various likely places but couldn't remember having it since leaving the lake at Ban Maka. Thinking it was probably packed-away somewhere we still thought it was worth quickly returning to the lake... and found it where I had last used it! Very fortunate not to have driven any further before realising it was missing! En-route stopped at a Seven Eleven store and much to our surprise they had small speakers available but shaped as either a brown bear or pink elephant. Decided to take a chance on the brown bear and was pleased to find it worked with the minidisc player on testing it out - result. We drove to the Lake Scene Resort conveniently located virtually on the shore of the Samnak Maiteng Reservoir. We arrived at c.2pm and just as we did we received a timely text from Gerry Brett to say his planned ambitious twitch for a Brown Noddy at sea off Lam Pak Bia had been postponed by a day so he was heading for the reservoir for 3pm and would happily show us around. Gerry soon arrived and we were off for a thorough tour of his superb local birding area. Encroachment of the surrounding area has unfortunately taken place over recent years but plenty of good habitat persists especially along the southern shore. During our whistle-stop tour with Gerry we flushed a Rain Quail, saw 350 Small Pratincoles and watched 6 Pied Harriers arrive to roost that included five males. We couldn't have wished for a better introduction to the area and Gerry seemed quite relieved that all his sites had readily delivered.